Handout:
My butterfly journal.doc
This is the front cover of the journal and then I will add paper that has an open space at the top for drawing and then lines on the bottom for drawing.

Students will start a Butterfly Journal on Day 3. This journal will be used to keep track of the changes that occur with the monarch larvae the will be in the classroom. I will not have them journal everyday but as changes occur, they will journal by drawing a picture and writing a couple sentences, describing what they see.

Day 1: Create a KWL chart to find out what students know about butterflies. I will read "The Very Hungary Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. Discuss what a Life Cycle is.

Day 2: Read "Monarch Butterflies" by Gail Gibbson. Then show students the butterfly eggs that you have purchased.

Day 3: Introduce the Butterfly Journal to students. Discuss the butterfly eggs and then have students draw pictures and write a sentence to describe what they see

Day 4: Talk with students about the first stage of a Butterfly Life Cycle. Show students the following website and then discuss how different butterflies lay different eggs. Photos of enlarged butterfly eggs

Day 5: Talk with students about the second stage of a Butterfly Life Cycle. Have students discuss what they know about Caterpillars. I am sure most students will have stories about how they found a caterpillar outside.

Day 6: Show students pictures of different caterpillars Caterpillar images

Day 7: Talk about what caterpillars eat, where they live and what they do. Use Caterpillar information

Day 8: Talk about the 3rd stage of the life cycle "The Pupa" Show students The pupa website

Day 9: Talk about metamorphosis and show students the following websites From larva to pupa and Butterfly metamorphosis photos

Day 10: Final Stage of the life cycle "Adult Butterfly" Reading "Waiting for Wings" by Lois Elhert.

Day 11: Show students the following website which gives information about what adult butterflies eat, where they live, the parts of a butterfly and other facts. Butterfly Adult
Show students how a butterfly emerges The emergence of a Monarch

Day 12: Read Butterflies and Caterpillars (Scholastic True or False Series)

For a final product, we will use different pasta shapes to represent the different stages of the life cycle. We will fold a piece of paper in fours and they will glue the pasta on and write the word that represents that stage.


  • spiral pasta-caterpilllar
  • shell pasta-chrysalis
  • bow tie pasta-butterfly
  • small pasta representing an egg

Grading:
Journal
3- is completed and has included drawing and writing
2- is completed but only has drawing or writing not both
1- has not completed all the pages
0- does not have any pages completed

Final Product:
3- completes the activity with all the stages in the correct order
2- attempts to complete the activity with some stages out of order
1- attempts to complete the activity without any stages in order
0- does not attempt the activity

Detailed Lesson:

Day 1

Materials:
Chart paper
marker
Book "The Very Hungary Caterpillar" by Eric Carle


1 Make a KWL chart- K(what students know) W(what they want to know) and L (what they learned)
K W L
2. Fill out the K and W part
3. Ask students what they know about Butterflies- fill it in under K
4. Ask students what they want to know about butterflies- fill it in under W
5. Tell them we will fill out the L part later
6. Read "The Very Hungary Caterpillar" and discuss it. Using felt board pieces, retell the story together
7. Let them know that for the next 11 days, we will be studying Butterflies and their Life Cycle

Sample Journal entry created by me.
sample work- K.doc